Couples blessed with children return to Obando for thanksgiving dance

OBANDO, BULACAN, Philippines — Swaying their hips to music again at the three-day festival here, the couples, who were finally blessed with children after joining the fertility dance, have returned to this town to give thanks to patron saints San Pascual Baylon, Santa Clara and Nuestra Señora de Salambao, ensconced at the centuries-old Obando Church.

Susana dela Cruz, 37, from Bocaue town, joined the fertility dance on the first day of the festivities on Saturday with her husband to thank the saints for the daughter they got out of their devotion. The couple brought their 2-year-old son to join the feast.

Dela Cruz said she and her husband started joining the fertility dance in 2020. By September 2023, she found herself pregnant.

Hundreds of devotees from different places in and outside Bulacan have come to the three-day feast, which ends Monday.

READ: Dance of Faith: Charming the deity of fertility

Bishop of Cubao Elias Ayuban Jr., who led an 8 a.m. Mass at the Obando Church to celebrate the Feast of San Pascual Baylon on Saturday, reminded parishioners and devotees of the humbleness, love for others and compassionate heart of the saint. Ayuban asked everyone to emulate the saint’s life full of love and giving.

Obando Church, built in 1754, is also known as the National Shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Immaculada Concepcion de Salambao-San Pascual Baylon Parish, under the Diocese of Malolos.

The Feast of Santa Clara, patron saint of fertility, was celebrated on May 18. More fertility dances, Masses and other activities were held in her honor at the Obando Church.

The Feast of Nuestra Señora de Salambao on May 19 is a day of thanksgiving for the whole year’s abundance, particularly the good catch of fisherfolk in the two island villages of Salambao and Binuangan.

Dancing men

On Saturday, Theo Reyes, 46, came from his hometown of Bulakan to dance along the main thoroughfare of Obando, just outside the Obando Church.

It was his 25th year of joining the festivity and leading a group of fellow devotees who came for different reasons, including asking for forgiveness of sins and a blessing of fertility.

“Since I was just a small kid, my parents would bring me here to dance and honor the three patron saints, not only for prayer of abundance but more so of gratitude as the devotion is not only purely begging for a child or a spouse. Also, as I grew up, I also danced for the forgiveness of my sins,” he told Inquirer.

Eduardo Marquez, 64, from Barangay San Pascual here, has been joining the dances since he was 18 years old.

Marquez credited the saints for his seven children, which includes a set of twins.

“Not only children, but of abundance. I am a contractor. Many of my children are now working abroad,” he said.

Obando Mayor Ding Valeda, who won his second term in last week’s elections, led the other newly elected officials of the town in the fertility dance on Saturday.

Valeda was not asking for a child but he was expressing his gratitude for the blessings showered on his town and its people such as the completion this year of the upgrade of the Flamengco Road.

He said flooding, caused by high tide in the first nine villages in the town except for the island barangays of Salamabao and Binuangan, has also been addressed by the Obando mega dike antiflooding project.

Origin

The history of the fertility rites or dances in Obando can be traced to the dances done before the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. They were initially done in honor of Diyan Masalanta, the Tagalog goddess of love; Lakapati, the Tagalog fertility deity; and Bathala, the supreme deity of the Tagalog people.

When the Spanish arrived in the 1500s, they converted the natives to Roman Catholicism and turned the fertility rites into a festival for the three patron saints. /cb